Welcome to Adventu, your final fantasy rp haven. adventu focuses on both canon and original characters from different worlds and timelines that have all been pulled to the world of zephon: a familiar final fantasy-styled land where all adventurers will fight, explore, and make new personal connections.
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year 5, quarter 3
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[attr=class,bulk] To Kuja’s immense surprise, among all the rugged adventurous types readying their swords, it was the young maiden in the flowing white dress who stepped forward to answer his questions. And quite thoroughly, at that.
”I see.” Thirty minutes ago? Well, it seemed he had made good time, at least. The woman even guessed correctly that it must be a dimensional portal. He wondered as to that. Had she any experience with such a thing? It seemed unlikely to say the least, but given their current circumstances, he couldn’t exactly rule it out.
The second to speak was, most obnoxiously, the moogle of all things. Kuja kept his mask of civility flawless as ever even as he wished to sneer at the irritating little pest. He didn’t mind them quite so much when they kept to their duties – delivering the mail – but whenever they dared speak to him…
What was kupo? What did it mean and why did they feel the need to sprinkle it into every sentence they spoke in their ear-piercing squeaks of a voice? If he had his way, he’d do away with them all, but of course he didn’t have his way and so they were allowed to flit freely about like the untimely little distractions that they were.
It irritated him far more that this moogle just so happened to possess vital information to his cause.
”This happens every time?” His eyebrows raised in surprise. Despite his best efforts, he had never heard of these tales of scholars that the moogle spoke of. Perhaps its existence as a buzzing little fly on the wall had its advantages.
Kuja’s gaze raised once more to the sparkling vistas of another world floating in all its ephemeral glory above their heads. Had this same location once sported a vision of Alexandria with all its ruined spires and crystalline pillars? Fascinating. Of course, given that this was gossip from a moogle’s mouth that hadn’t been corroborated with any more legitimate sources, Kuja couldn’t take it as absolute truth. However, it was quite the thought.
”I wonder…” Kuja placed a finger to his lips in thought, head tilted. ”If this is truly a portal then why do those pulled from it not merely fall out of the sky? Perhaps it is only part of said portal. One cog in a vast machine…”
Dimensional physics was not his strong suit. He knew the basics, of course. An upbringing on Terra, a planet dimensionally displaced, would allow nothing else, but he could not, for instance, create a portal of his own. He knew little of how they actually functioned. Information kept from him strategically in order to ensure his banishment no doubt.
If only he had access to Terra’s archives! But alas. He’d destroyed them along with the rest of that miserable planet, and now he was here. A pity.
Kuja’s gaze slid over the intrepid adventurers seemingly eager to explore. All of them replaceable. Predictable. Quaint. Then his eyes landed on the young maiden, out of place among the rest of her traveling party.
”And what brings an esteemed woman such as yourself to such a dreadful place as this?” It was clear from the woman’s dress, her jewelry, and her general demeanor that she came from nobility at the very least. It was unusual to see such a character out and about, trudging through the mud and the monsters in a set of high heels.
Unusual, but not unprecedented. A certain princess came to mind. A princess who absolutely refused to stay still and mind her own business.
[attr=class,bulk] Had the princess always been quite so self-righteous? He supposed so, if he’d ever listened to her. In truth, while the girl had always been integral to his plans, he’d never really spoken to her. Not exactly. She was but a pawn to move from one side of the board to the other and hopefully to land in her the greedy hands of her loathsome mother.
How that woman could have raised a daughter like this was beyond him. But so was the question of nature versus nurture.
Kuja didn’t bat an eye as she defended Garland of all people, presumably out of some hateful instinct against him. He was finished with their oh so predictable verbal sparring. Even when he revealed the true object of his scheming – a playbook – she simply couldn’t stop herself from launching into another speech.
A speech about kindness of all things. It would have taken great effort not to roll his eyes. So he did. His derision only grew as she pulled out her staff, going on about stopping him at this very moment. In an anti-magic field. At the back of an antique store in a despotic dictatorship that hated them both. Did she plan to bludgeon him to death with that little stick of hers? He certainly hoped that she had a plan for her time in a Sonoran prison, or so he would have told her, until a conflicted look crossed her eyes and she threw down her staff at his feet.
Kuja’s eyebrows raised. He did love a good show of dramatics.
I cannot defeat you in a fight,” she said as though that were not completely and utterly self-evident. But her next words surprised him, if only a little. She intended to try what she suspected no one else truly had. She would talk to him.
The obvious retort rose unbidden to his tongue. That obviously he had spoken to others in his time. It was, of course, his main motive of operation. His primary weapon was, after all, his silver tongue. However, it seemed she had something else in mind that was indeed quite novel. She would not speak to him so much as give a speech. It was an attempt to reason with him or perhaps to reach some long closed off part of his heart which might hold some withered empathy for his future victims.
It was…intriguing if nothing else. He decided to listen. He watched her impassively, head tilted slightly as she went on about the nature of life and death. She spoke as though she understood him simply because she knew of his origins. It was only when she mentioned Garland’s gift of life that he openly sneered, but he kept his retorts to himself. At least until the speech was finished because he wished to see its end.
It was as though she were performing her own improvised soliloquy on a stage of her own making. He knew his place in this little play of theirs. He was and always had been the villain.
No matter his derision, no matter his irritation, no matter the true offense he felt at her implications that he sought to end lives for its own sake, he listened. He listened and he waited until she was quite done before he mulled over his response. This was a different game than they’d engaged in before. He didn’t know the rules of his game, exactly, but he thought he’d give it a try.
”Do you know what irks me the most about you?” he asked, his eyes landing lazily on hers. ”You seem to think that you have me entirely figured out. You caught a glimpse of my birthplace. You faced my creator. You saw me in my lowest moment. And from this you think that there’s nothing more to know. You make your assumptions and you treat them as fact and then you throw them back in my face, but you’re so hopelessly and utterly wrong.”
He turned from her, crossing his arms with the playbook in hand as he looked up to examine the ceiling tiles. ”Do you not understand? I was not gifted with life. A gift is an offering which one does not expect returned. From the moment that my nascent soul awoke within the vessel which he had sculpted for me, it was clear that life was a privilege one must earn. If I were to step a toe out of line, if I were to perform even a point below expectation then it was a privilege he would revoke.”
A dry smirk touched his lips, cold and humorless. ”You have seen Terra in its eternal, unflinching stasis. What did you think of it? How could you, royalty by technicality if not by birth, possibly understand? You, who lived safely loved and cherished by all within your halls of luxury in a world alive with natural wonders? Zidane understood, I think. He could imagine that alternate future where I had not defied our creator to rid myself of him. Where he had grown not in the streets of Lindblum with his little band of misfits, but had continued at my side, both of us at the mercy of our dear Master Garland.”
The very words made his tongue sour. The title he was expected to use, the only one he’d known for twelve years of life and which he had spoken without irony. Garland. His creator. His master. The one who he could never quite please no matter how he tried. The one he was never meant to. For he was merely a prototype to be tested and examined and thrown away. Defective no matter his drive for perfection.
Kuja turned to her again, his eyes cooler this time. ”You speak as though I expected immortality. As though death was not an ever-present blade swinging precariously over my neck. Do you still not understand? After my banishment, I was still expected to perform, and to him that meant destruction. If I did not perform to his expectations, I would be discarded. He expected a certain number of souls to feed the Iifa Tree, and my very life depended on it. Yet every soul I sent to fuel his ambitions brought Terra one step closer to its inevitable assimilation, and upon that assimilation, I would be deemed irrelevant. Death if I did not perform. Death if I did. Do you see now why I sought power?”
He laughed scathingly. ”I set my plans in motion, balancing on a knife’s edge, providing him with more souls than he could possibly expect of me, all the while assembling the shards of crystal needed to summon Alexander and steal its power for myself. For only such a power as this could defeat a master who could, at a thought, wrench away my consciousness. Unfortunately, he saw through my plans. He destroyed Alexander and thus your city of Alexandria. And so I sought new methods of power and found it in the secrets of Trance.
”Trance. The one ability I lacked. I was unable to harness its destructive power and so I was deemed irrelevant and Garland created a replacement in my stead. Ironic, isn’t it? That I was capable after all? More capable than he could possibly have imagined.”
Kuja let his scowl fade into a heavy sigh. ”But you won’t understand any of this, will you? Gaian as you are? I was forced to learn your ways, and yet none have ever known an inkling of mine. You’ll go on about the power of kindness and love and the value of life. You, who have never had every day defined by the very struggle for your own. I will admit to one mistake. I should have never meddled with Memoria. But can you imagine it? Standing finally at the cusp of your impossible victory, your life secured at last, only to learn that it was all for nothing? That your adversary had won the game before it had even begun? That he was right and you were never anything more than his tool? Imagine it with the power of worlds at your fingertips.
”I destroyed Terra in vengeance. It was all he had ever cared for and I destroyed it. You should be thanking me, really. Gaia’s remaining time was short and its destruction was all but secured. I exterminated its parasite and then found myself on the edge of despair. A foolish, desperate thought whispered in my ear, and I followed it to the edge of all creation. If I was to die then I would take the rest of life with me.
”Needless to say, I was not in my right mind.” Kuja waved his free hand almost dismissively. ”It was a mistake,” he repeated, ”One fueled by twenty-four years of fear and frustration. I would not make it again – not that I could without the Invincible. I have killed on this new planet we share. At times, in self-defense. At others, simply to further my own agenda. But that agenda is not mass eradication. It never was, really. At the moment, I seek pleasure, safety, isolation, and the satisfaction of my own curiosity. I have taken to excavating the ruins of an ancient civilization in an attempt to rebuild their technology and, hopefully, to cure my ailment before it claims my life.
”You are free to condemn me or to consider this all a lie. It matters little to me.” Kuja uncrossed his arms, carefully turning over the playbook in his hands. So fragile. So full of passion. ”But I came for this book. Nothing more. I had it on reserve, and once I return to my hideaway, I will read it reverently as a reminder of Gaia in all its best qualities. I’ve always loved the theater, you know. Its art, its expression, its indulgences, all an antithesis to what I was meant to become. You played an adequate Cornelia, you know. You could call me impressed.”
He hummed in laughter. Truly, that had been a performance to remember.
[attr=class,bulk] The man reacted in a way that even Kuja could not have anticipated. At hearing the news that he had, in fact, been swept away from everything he had ever known, he stared at him for only a moment and then reached up a hand to his forehead and began to laugh.
Kuja raised an eyebrow. How curious indeed.
Whatever had given him cause for such dry, raucous laughter, the man kept to himself. He spoke only when he had finished with his humors, lowering his hand to appraise Kuja again. Was he mad or telling the truth? Kuja only smiled in return as the mysterious swordsman came to the proper conclusion. The man was distrustful of strangers, that much was obvious. He was a skeptic by nature, but he was no fool. Such conditions would make Kuja’s own ambitions a challenge, but Kuja had never been one to shy away from a challenge.
He would stay and continue the game. For now.
Once again, the swordsman came to a logical conclusion, addressing Kuja directly with a question of his origin. ”I was,” Kuja answered simply. ”I, too, was stolen away from the clutches of death and thrust upon these very same sands. It took some time to discover what had become of me, but here I stand. Ready to share all that I know.”
Kuja knew that there were some in this place who made it their life’s mission to find those lost travelers of the interdimensional corners of the universe and explain to them their new circumstances. Kuja couldn’t understand it. The reactions were always the same. ’But how am I here? Was I not already dead? I don’t remember a thing. How do I return?’ It was dull work. Predictable work. Kuja generally avoided it, but he had done far worse work in the name of power, and he couldn’t deny that a traveler freshly lost to time and space was left in a vulnerable state – one that made them an easy target for any wishing to use such vulnerability to their advantage.
Though this man, strange in his mannerisms, did not seem to fall to despair. Far from it, his eyes lit with the same hunger that drove Kuja’s own questioning. He was curious.
”Then you can use magic without being bound to an eikon? And you suffer no ill effects?” the man asked. His eyes swept over Kuja’s body in a way that he was not unused to. Beauty was both a blessing and a curse, after all.
Kuja tilted his head, touching his bottom lip thoughtfully. His smile did not waver. ”My magic is my own,” he answered. ”It stems from my very soul, and I have honed it much in the way that you have honed your blade. Such magic was unusual in the world from which I was taken, but it is not so foreign here. You will find cities built upon the arcane arts though I find their spellcraft lacking and their range dreadfully limited.”
Kuja laughed quietly behind the back of his hand. He held little affection for the city of sea and sky, oft besieged by villains and disaster alike. He had been that villain once, long ago. It had won him the very dragon which now circled the skies. A fair trade, if he might say so himself.
”We can speak more once we have reached civilization, if you would wish it of me. I am well known in the desert city of Aljana. Once I have finished my business there, I would not mind your company should you call upon it.” He looked to the sky, cloudless and a blaring, blazing blue. ”I will travel by dragon along the usual trade paths, and you can follow behind. It should be only half a day’s travel by chocobo if you know the way.”
Kuja could have made the trip in half the time if he took Ava at her usual speed and ignored the ground routes for a straight path as the crow flies. But he supposed the extra hours would be worth his while so long as he had truly won the swordsman’s favor.
”Ah, but we’ve forgotten our introductions. I’m Kuja. Sorcerer, inventor, arms dealer, and archaeologist.” He slipped into a well practiced bow, the kind he had perfected in the noble courts of Treno and Alexandria before he straightened and regarded the man before him. ”A pleasure. Might I ask as to your name?”
[attr=class,bulk] Oh, how Kuja loved withholding information! It was one of his life’s greatest pleasures, he’d found, whenever he had the opportunity to stand above another, resplendent in his knowledge and the dramatic ironies only he had the chance to appreciate! It was a feeling of power, held secretly in the palm of one’s hand. He would hate to part with it now, particularly when he held it over someone so strong and self-assured, but such was the nature of their transaction.
And perhaps he could learn a little in return.
His eyes gleamed with hunger as the man spoke, so cryptic and nonsensical that it would have seemed like madness had Kuja not known better. What were these crystals he spoke of? And how, exactly, could he mistake Kuja for an eidolon that, last he knew, had most resembled a sea serpent? It was the same hunger he felt at the sight of ancient ruins, their secrets long lost. Knowledge was power, and he wished to claim it all.
”You will have to tell me more of where you came from. Valisthea, did you call it? How curious.” He had never heard that one before, and he had heard tales of many worlds and many planets here on their strange little land that drifted in between. He wished to chronicle every detail so that he knew better how to handle any future travelers. But that could wait, assuming he kept the man’s attention once they reached civilization.
All the more reason to prove himself useful, he supposed.
Kuja waved a hand at the horizon of endless sand. ”You will find these lands to be a nexus of sorts. It was populated long before your arrival with a history dating back centuries at least. Now some power calls to those of strength across the span of dimensions. Why, I could not say, though I have spent years studying the phenomena.”
Almost as an afterthought, Kuja added, ”They call this place Zephon. We are currently in the Reikinto Sands to the far east of the continent.”
Would the man believe him? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But Kuja would be proven right in time, and he hoped that his show of strength had bought him time if nothing else.
”The laws of the universe as you know them do not apply here. And no. I’m afraid I am not Leviathan.”
[attr=class,bulk] Kuja watched the girl as she insisted that his uncharacteristic moment of honesty had, in fact, been false. What did she know, he thought, of his motivations? Of her own mother and how the queen had folded into his hands with hardly more than a nudge in the right direction? Perhaps that hideous elephant woman had once been a kind and caring mother. He doubted it, but he supposed that anything was possible. He knew the queen when she spoke behind closed doors. He knew her in her court, and he knew the way her eyes had gleamed hungrily as he’d promised her weapons which could conquer the continent. There had simply been no need to corrupt the woman as Queen Garnet Til Alexandros insisted he’d done.
He watched her, eyes cold, as he waited for the conclusion of her righteous indignation. He wanted what was his by right. He wanted that thrice-damned book and he wanted to be rid of this place. He’d lost the patience for pointless argumentation.
And that would have been the end of it if the newly coronated queen hadn’t thought to cut deeper.
”I have seen who you really are, Kuja,” she insisted. ”Who you have always been. A scared little boy so afraid of his own death.”
For a split second, his composure slipped. He felt his eyes widen, felt his own vulnerability as his lips parted, taken aback. Then his gaze heated, searing her like bahamut’s flame. She listed all that he feared. Garland. Zidane. His death. She spoke of his lack of strength. His lack of endurance in the face of it all. How he’d failed.
What did she know?
She went on to condemn him, listing all of the lives lost at his hands. It meant nothing to him. Nothing in the face of that all-consuming question. What did she know?
What could she possibly have known? Of his life? Of his endurance? Of his fears? He would like to see her endure under those conditions. To accept her own irrelevance as Garland had clearly expected him to. He had endured for twelve long years under his command. He had endured his continued control after his banishment for twelve more, still expected to perform at perfection with the ever-looming threat of deadly punishment ever hanging over his head.
He had endured enough.
He had nothing to say to her. Absolutely nothing except for one contradiction, quiet and muttered on a knife’s edge. ”Garland was hardly fair or just.” It was by his hand that he was dying, after all. His creator’s hand. No higher power in the world had caused his condition. Just the heartless ambitions of a withered old man so used to his own solitude that he could no longer recognize the souls of others.
He smirked faintly as she insisted he search for comfort in his last days rather than destruction. It wasn’t his usual smirk, so smug, above it all with knowledge that no one else could possibly possess. It was dry. Tired, perhaps. He was always so tired.
”You are right in one thing, Your Majesty,” he said. ”You are no longer the naive girl whose own kindness led her astray. Your kind heart has gone cold. Corrupted, you might even say? Your mother would be proud.”
With that, Kuja approached her and simply shoved her aside. One hard push would do, he thought, however she protested. Then he took the box, rummaged inside for a moment, and pulled out the weathered playbook, taking it carefully in his hands lest the binding fall loose.
”I’m done with this farce. If you wouldn’t mind, I think I’ll take my comforts elsewhere.”
[attr=class,bulk] ”A dragoon?” Kuja echoed. Wasn’t that what the Burmecian knights called themselves? Kuja’s eyes flicked from the swordsman to his dragon circling above and then back again. Did the man…believe he’d jumped from that height? Without so much as disturbing the sand? Kuja put a hand to his mouth to stifle his silent laughter, his shoulders shaking with the effort. The dragoons of the swordsman’s homeland must have been a sight more graceful than the clumsy fumbling of Burmecia’s rats if he could ever think such a thing unironically.
Still, Kuja had the man’s attention. That much was clear. Enough so that the swordsman dismounted, landing heavily in the sand to face him. Ah! But there was that bolt of adrenaline once more! It was the thrill of a life or death game with the odds stacked against him. Kuja’s eyes gleamed with the challenge.
His opponent’s first move was a defensive one, cautiously asking the cost of his information. Kuja responded with a smile. ”Your favor,” he said simply. ”Or at least enough to not share the same fate as these unfortunate travelers.” He waved a hand towards the discarded corpses, his violet lacquered nails glinting in the harsh sunlight.
The match had begun in earnest. It was time for Kuja to make his opening move.
”Though I will give you this much free of charge. This desert is the largest land mass on the continent, spanning from its southern shores to its northern reaches, and it is sparsely populated. Without proper direction, one might travel for weeks without ever reaching its end. Nature is an impossible foe for even the greatest of swordsmen, wouldn’t you agree?”
Perhaps the man would claim him a liar and impose the same punishment as the riders before him. He seemed as familiar with the deserts of his world as Kuja was of Gaia’s, but this kind of game required its risks, and Kuja placed a fair amount of weight on the power of mystique.
”Ah. But this heat is simply unbearable. Would you care for a reprieve?” Kuja gathered sparks of magic to his fingertips and directed it upwards, swirling it about until above their heads he’d gathered a perfect sphere of clear blue water. He clenched his fist and the sphere broke, showering them both with a pleasant drizzle like rain. It gathered in puddles at their feet and slid in rivulets down the dunes.
Watera may not have been the best use of his magic when he was already exhausted from teleportation, but this was not a battle of strength but of wits, and Kuja thought he had made his point perfectly clear. ’I have power. I could use it to your advantage. I am worthy of your interest.’
[attr=class,bulk] The desert wind was pleasant as it whipped around him, tussling his hair and both cooling and heating him at once. Kuja thought he might never tire of it, this exhilarating sensation of a living planet’s natural graces. It was particularly refreshing after his time in the ever dismal, ever icy Sonora and his many months picking through the ruins of the Valley, feeling as though he may drown in its oppressive humidity. The desert, on the other hand, offered him nothing but heat, wind, and solitude, and as he sat nestled upon his dragon’s back, watching the sands drift by below him, he was grateful for it.
He had no real business of note today. It was a time of rest, mostly, though he also found himself short on gil given his current priorities. His scavenging through the jungle paid less than nothing. His purchases in Sonora cost even more. Given all of this, he had neglected his usual business in Aljana and so hadn’t had a choice but to return to his desert hideaway to continue it. He had stored his wares in the modified saddlebags strapped to Ava’s waist. Though his dragon had snorted her displeasure, his magical trinkets, talismans, and other oddities of note weighed far less than what she generally carried for him, and so there had been no real resistance.
He would enjoy this flight, this moment, then sell his wares, spend a few nights in the city with all its amenities and eccentricities, and then return to his work restoring the Lost City’s magitechnology. It was a simple matter. Or at least, it should have been.
It was not out of place to see traders and caravans out upon the desert roads. Those of Aljana knew him well enough not to panic at the sight of his dragon flying over them. Those not native to the region did not, and he found it ever amusing. He liked to watch as he passed them by in those brief few livable hours at dawn and dusk when travel was made possible in the Sands. Three approached on the horizon, saddled on the backs of desert-bred chocobos. Down the road, a figure stood, facing them expectantly.
Hm. Now wasn’t that interesting…
The man seemed to have no means of transportation for himself and looked entirely unlike the usual residents and nomads of the desert. Kuja would have thought him to be a bandit if he’d been at all prepared for the climate and its challenges. However, as the chocobo riders approached, Kuja watched as the man seemed to summon an overlong and quite deadly looking blade from thin air.
He swung it expertly at his moving targets. There was a squawk of terror from the chocobos as the heads of their riders were instantly severed and sent toppling into the sands. Their bodies followed shortly after. The singular survivor gave a delayed shout, more out of surprise than terror as blood soaked the ground around him and the mysterious swordsman appeared suddenly before him as though by magic.
Kuja leaned forward, marveling at the carnage which took place below. Such power…
Could he perhaps take it for himself?
Kuja stroked his dragon’s feathers. ”Circle the skies,” he told her he called upon his magic and willed himself to the ground. Teleportation was not, as it happened, an effortless skill. It was one that he often kept at the back of his mind – a last resort as it were for the concentration and magic it took to complete. Indeed, he felt quite drained as that familiar blue light engulfed him and he felt the sands rise beneath his feet until he was, finally, grounded once more. Teleportation was a skill best saved for the most perfect of times, and this, he thought, was one of them.
The mysterious swordsman could be deranged. He could have a hatred of dragons. He could simply disappear again, instantly out of his grasp. So long as Ava kept to the skies, she would be safe to ferry him away once more.
The desert was not nearly so pleasant from the ground.
He stood, his metal boots sinking deep into the heated dune on which he’d found himself as he watched the scene play out at a slight distance, arms crossed, hand curiously at his cheek. The swordsman put his blade to the neck of the surviving rider and demanded to know his destination. When the shocked traveler responded, the man merely sighed, rubbed at his head, and then felled his victim in a single strike.
Kuja’s heart was pounding. Was that anticipation? Curiosity? Longing? Fear? He couldn’t tell, but he ached for an ally of that strength. Here, he lacked such things, his reputation having been quite thoroughly tarnished by his enemies. If he could give the swordsman's wrath a more proper direction…
”He was telling the truth, you know,” he called as the swordsman took the chocobo’s saddle for himself and began down the road. ”If it’s information you seek then I would be more than happy to oblige.”
[attr=class,bulk] Kuja’s patience had its limits. Generally, they were quite low though he managed to keep himself in check through sheer force of will. How long had he suffered indignity after indignity in the courts of Treno? Of Alexandria? He knew well how to hold his tongue, keep his expression placidly clear, and play along as though he didn’t long to clench his hand tightly around another’s throat.
How lucky that he had developed such a skill for a time such as this!
What had begun as a mere hindrance was quickly turning to an endless torment. It wasn’t that he feared the princess (now queen, he reminded himself). Alone and without her magic or her eidolons, he could have simply swept her aside if he so wished. Even without his spells, he had an advantage in height and general constitution. But that would only increase her insistence in the evil at his core, wouldn’t it? And it wouldn’t do to strangle her in the halls of a potentially hostile establishment.
Perhaps he should start to carry a small dagger on hand for cases such as this. It seemed to work for Zidane.
And so he had no choice but to play along. To listen to her self-righteous and often quite ill-informed accusations. Kuja was no stranger to such things, but he could generally find humor in it when his accusers truly knew nothing of him, his mission, or his origins. This was different. This was somehow more…personal.
And oh so very irritating.
”You hardly defeated me,” he said, scoffing even as he was aware of his own defensiveness. ”I grew tired of our battle and destroyed the crystal as intended. If anything, you gave me the push I needed to do it.”
Ugh. Now she’d goaded him into being honest with himself. If her life hadn’t been so precious to Zidane, he would have happily made her pay for that.
”Did I though?” Kuja asked with a wave of his hand. ”Not that I wouldn't have gladly stolen your kingdom, murdered your mother, and taken your eidolons for myself. But as it happens, I don’t recall taking the rule of any kingdom, the death of your mother was in self-defense, and your eidolons were extracted by the meltigemini on the queen’s orders to be delivered directly to her hands. I only ever controlled Bahamut. Again, in self-defense seeing as your hag of a mother had crossed an ocean to set its fire upon me.”
He paused. ”Granted, the siege of Alexandria was my doing. As was the destruction of Madain Sari, albeit on another’s orders. Your hatred is entirely justified though if you are to harass me with your speeches, I’d prefer it be for what I did, and not what you’ve implicated upon me.”
His eyes darted back to that dreadful, hated box. He could have searched it so much more quickly given she didn’t even know what she was looking for. And if she found it? Would she believe it was his only goal? Would she hand it over so they could be done with this farce? He swore, if she tried to take it from him…
Well, his patience had its limits. He could hardly be blamed for whatever happened next.
”By all means. Observe as you wish. As I am not currently scheming, I have nothing to hide.” Kuja pushed back his bangs with a wave of his hand, swishing his hair over his shoulder. ”Nothing more than you at any rate. As you may have noticed, this city is hardly welcoming of outsiders.”
[attr=class,bulk] The princess (or queen now as she reminded him) did not, it seemed, have a natural skill for wit and banter. He could hardly blame her, he supposed. She had been raised behind her castle walls, waited upon hand and foot by those who wouldn’t dare show disrespect to one of royal blood. How ironic it was then that she had none of it herself? Ah, but that would have been a blow too low even for him.
And so he waited for her to finish her oh so righteous speeches. She tried, at least. Did that not count for something?
”What are you here for, Kuja? What weapon have you found in Sonora? It won’t help you win! We’ll find a way to stop you!”
”Finally to the point, I see.” Kuja, now relieved of the accursed weight of the wooden box, leapt from the ladder and landed effortlessly upon the ragged carpet below. He crossed his arms, watching coolly as the princess searched the box, ever keeping him in her peripheral vision. What did she expect to find, exactly? A device labeled, ’Press here to end all worlds?’
That would have been quite convenient. But alas.
”You realize that bringing death and destruction is only one of my many hobbies, yes?” He watched her, unamused as she stood between himself and his prize. Assuming the shopkeeper had pointed him towards the correct part of the warehouse which was, in itself, doubtful. Life had never presented an easy path for him, and this was no exception. ”Today I come on other business. Though by all means, continue your skepticism. You know how I so love deceit.”
If only he could use his magic! His fingers twitched to take the box for himself, captured in telekinesis, and rip it from her hands. They did not quite twitch for her murder. Not yet.
Despite her persistence, she was, he supposed, quite justified in her hostility. As much as he hated imagining the experiences of another, it could prove useful from time to time. Perhaps if she had been someone else…
Perhaps if he did not owe Zidane a debt.
Not that he believed in such things.
”Though I must say your words offend me, Your Majesty. Do you truly believe I have only ever stolen my power? Ah yes. What would I, a mage, know of having power as part of my very being and honing it as my own? I am nothing but a common thief, as you say. Or perhaps that was my counterpart…”
He raised a hand to examine his nails. Painted. Pointed. Manicured, yes, but hardly unused to the stain of blood.
”And have you forgotten what I am? The purpose of my creation? Why would you assume I’ve had no weapons training? That would seem quite…counter-intuitive, wouldn’t you say?”
In truth, his time practicing the physical arts had been limited and dreadful. His body had been created with agility in mind. Dexterity was no foreign concept as his duller counterpart so clearly demonstrated. Still, a weapon had never seemed to fit quite right in his hands. It had been the first of his many failures in his creator’s eyes, but he found magic to be far more resourceful. Magic was elegant. Magic was versatile. Magic did not, as it were, require him to damage his manicured hands.
He glanced towards the box and its contents, eyes narrowing. ”Do keep in mind that the piece I’m after is one of extreme rarity. I have it on reserve. And I’d rather hope that you would not be so stupid as to steal away what is rightfully mine.”
[attr=class,bulk] Kuja was readying himself for the next step down the ladder when he heard a familiar voice call his name. Well, it wasn’t so much a call as an accusation. Kuja let out a laborious sigh that expressed every bit of the inconvenience he felt at that voice. Why here? Why now? Truly, the wheels of fate had a strange sense of humor.
Kuja glanced over to see her there, the young princess of Alexandria, his primary victim in another time and place. She stood at the end of the dusty aisle in a combative stance not entirely unlike how she wielded her staff only now that staff was replaced by…
Was that a candlestick?
He let out a short laugh despite himself. Short because his muscles were currently engaged in the extreme efforts of both keeping his balance while holding the box over his head. Certainly the shopkeeper must have hired someone to do this in his stead? Why not keep the hired help at hand in cases like these? It was as though he didn’t actually wish to sell any of his collection at all.
”Your Highness,” Kuja greeted her, his voice dripping with mockery as he took yet another strained step closer to the ground. ”I realize this might be a difficult concept to grasp, but as far as I’m aware, we’re both reliant on our magic which is, as you have so astutely observed, currently at a loss.”
Was she truly trying to intimidate him? With a candlestick of all things? The girl didn’t even have her staff to try beating him to death. Perhaps she thought she could trick him into believing she had any sort of allies at all. While he had no doubt that she did have them somewhere (her type always did) they were certainly not here. Otherwise, why try intimidating him herself? It was laughable. Thankfully, he had already laughed.
”If you would like to wait outside until my business here is finished, I would be more than happy to oblige your wishes. What shall you summon upon me this time? In a city as crowded as this? If I may make a request, let it be Atomos. I would love nothing more than for this dismal place to be swallowed by its gaping maw.”
He took another step. Only a few more and he’d feel comfortable dropping this damnable thing without damaging its contents.
”Otherwise, perhaps you could lend me a hand? Assuming you’ve given up your plan of lightly bruising me with a candlestick.”
